Showing results by publisher "HarperAudio" in Coaching

It's described as the greatest achievement the modern game has seen, and Ivan Cleary is the man behind it—the astonishing, historic benchmark of multiple back-to-back premiership wins by the Penrith Panthers in 2021, 2022 and 2023. In his own words, Cleary tells all about what he's learned and how he leads, informed by his decades as a player and coach—a playmaker, team builder, mentor and leader who understands that not everything counts, but everything matters.

Award-winning sports journalist Scott Howard-Cooper uncovers the fascinating life story of a basketball legend. Kerr did not follow a traditional path to the NBA. He was born in Beirut to two academics and split his childhood between California and the Middle East. Though he was an impressive shooter, the undersized Kerr garnered almost no attention from major college programs, managing only at the last moment to snag the final scholarship at the University of Arizona.

A man of deep passion and intensity, George Karl earned his bad boy reputation while playing at the University of North Carolina, a rap that continued through the five years he spent with the San Antonio Spurs - and long after he stopped playing. Karl's beery nights, fistfights, and barking followed him into a 35-year coaching career. In a game defined by big stakes and bigger egos, rabid fans and an unforgiving media, Karl was hired and fired a dozen times.

The extraordinary behind-the-scenes story of how Coach Bruce Arians, Tom Brady, and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers came together to deliver one of the most improbable Super Bowl victories in NFL history.

The longtime commissioner of Major League Baseball provides an unprecedented look inside professional baseball today, focusing on how he helped bring the game into the modern age and revealing his interactions with players, managers, fellow owners, and fans nationwide.

Rick Pitino is a basketball icon: the only coach in college history to lead three different schools to the Final Four, the winner of the 1996 NCAA championship, the owner of a sparkling career record, a bestselling author, and a lock for the College Basketball Hall of Fame. Yet Pitino's journey has not been without life-altering adversity.

Known for decades as one of the NFL’s most iconic and spectacular playmakers, Deion Sanders remains college football's most intriguing newsmaker. In just three years, he has become the most talked about coach by recruiting elite players to moribund programs and reviving the spirit and pride of forgotten fanbases by winning. Along the way, he’s changing how we think about college sports while rejuvenating whole communities with the national attention that follows him and the fresh commerce a winning culture ignites.

Pitching dominates baseball as never before. Spin rate, sweepers, 105 mph fastballs—all have become standard when evaluating pitching arms and techniques and are familiar lingo in discussion and analysis of the game. Gone is the era of the swaggering power hitters. Batting averages are close to the deadball era; team records for strikeouts are broken and then broken again. The game has fundamentally changed, and hitters may never catch up.

Every four years, Americans turn their attention to the world’s game - soccer. As recently as 1998, the USMNT merely made up the numbers at the biggest sporting tournament of all, but once Bruce Arena took over the team, American soccer started to find its footing. In the 2002 World Cup, a highly-fancied Portugal team, featuring the great Ronaldo, lost to Arena’s US team in a shocking 3-2 victory, and but for a handball that wasn’t given, they could well have knocked off eventual winners Germany.

After 33 seasons managing in Major League Baseball, Tony La Russa thought he had seen it all - that is, until the 2011 Cardinals. Down ten and a half games with little more than a month to play, the Cardinals had long been ruled out as serious postseason contenders. Yet in the face of those steep odds, this team mounted one of the most dramatic and impressive comebacks in baseball history, making the playoffs on the night of the final game of the season and going on to win the World Series despite being down to their last strike - twice.